the science behind how, why, and what you feel

Pride and Guilt: Affective Keys to Sustainability

By most accounts, the 2015 Paris COP21 Summit in December was a success. Member nations committed to restricting global warming to no more than 2°C, and ideally only 1.5°C, above pre-industrial levels – largely by cutting greenhouse gas emissions. While such nation-level commitment is of utmost import, slowing or curbing the negative effects of climate change will also require people to take actions themselves. A body of recent research highlights how emotions might play a pivotal role in motivating such actions.

Empirical findings point to two specific emotions that might be at the heart of pro-environmental action: pride and guilt. Pride arises from engaging in socially-valued behaviors and reinforces doing them. Guilt, on the other hand, stems from performing socially-sanctioned behaviors and dissuades doing them.

It appears that the simple anticipation of pride or guilt carries the potential to shape pro-environmental behavior. Specifically, anticipated pride from engaging in sustainable behavior and guilt from not doing so promotes intentions to engage in sustainable consumption.1,2 As such, it appears that it would require no more than thinking about the pride one would feel after buying an electric car or the guilt over choosing to not install solar panels to bring about sustainable choices.

There is also promise that pride and guilt can be leveraged to promote sustainability at the group level. In one study, when guilt was elicited by thinking about the in-group’s responsibility for environmental damage, individuals endorsed efforts to redress the damage.3 Pride elicited by thinking about the in-group’s responsibility for environmental protection led individuals to endorse further environmental protection.

We have insight into why pride and guilt have these effects. Once feeling guilty or proud, individuals feel more responsible for their choices,4,5 thus increasing the likelihood that they take it upon themselves to make better choices. More generally, both pride and guilt promote self-control,6 which is key if individuals want to change entrenched past patterns of behavior.

Whether at the individual or group-level, felt in the moment or anticipated in the future, or via responsibility or self-control, it is clear that pride and guilt carry the power to lead us to engage in actions that benefit the environment. If we set personal sustainability targets, pride and guilt will provide the impetus to stick to them.

The challenge, then, becomes how to capitalize on pride and guilt to maximize positive environmental behavior. Research in the context of voting behavior suggests that something as simple as the threat of publicizing individuals’ (in)action can be the spark to bring about these socially-oriented emotions, and, in so doing, behavioral change.7 In fact, I’d suggest that pride and guilt may underlie the success of the Neighbourhood Scoreboards Project,8 which investigated the effect of posting energy usage and ranking on the facades of houses in a neighborhood in Sydney, Australia. Simple outcome: a 2.5% drop in energy consumption.

4 Antonetti, P., & Maklan, S. (2014). Feelings that make a difference: How guilt and pride convince consumers of the effectiveness of sustainable consumption choices. Journal of Business Ethics, 124(1), 117–134.

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2 thoughts on “Pride and Guilt: Affective Keys to Sustainability”

Using emotions for good and not evil is a noble endeavor. A word of caution is that some of the same things can trigger either guilt or shame. Guilt comes with the appraisal of controllability and limiting transgressions to behaviors that can be changed; shame on the other hand come with the appraisal that it is a flawed self or uncontrollable trait and the result is hiding or withdrawing. Often, even in the emotion literature, these two are conflated and in any behavior change paradigm it is essential to motivate guilt rather than shame. In a nutshell, shame is great at preventing behaviors (e.g., think of success of smoking reduction after tipping point of social sanctions against smokers); guilt is great at motivating behaviors.